


Golden Boy

by byelervevo (orphan_account)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 20:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12734199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/byelervevo
Summary: Mike had always had a habit of kissing Will's scrapes and bruises. And one day he sees Will's new friend kiss his scraped knee and gets super jealous.But how can he not get jealous, Will Byers is his golden boy.(a request I got on my blog @ stenbroughvevo, feel free to head over and send me a request!)





	Golden Boy

Mike loves Will. He always has, and he always will. Whether he’s saying hello or saying goodbye to Will, for the entirety of the second grade he never forgets to say “I love you!”, much to the smaller boy’s disdain. But how could he not? Will Byers is a golden boy, and Mike loves him as much as he likes playing alien-attack with him on the playground.

And neither boy is really sure how the whole kissing thing started. It was probably Nancy’s fault; after all, every girl is gross and she mentions wanting to kiss Joey McIntyre all the time. So when the jerks in their second grade class push Will onto the wood chips and he cuts his knee, Mike is there at his side as soon as he sees the tears begin prickling the other boy’s eyes (but not after calling the bullies dummies).

“Hey, don’t cry!” Mike tells him, crouching down next to him and inspecting the scrape. He tries to think back to the last time he hurt himself (two days earlier) and how his mother took care of him, and kissed his elbow before sending him back out to play, and so he does just that. So Mike kisses the wound and grimaces when he tastes the iron-y blood on his lips.

Will laughs, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “That’s gross.”

“I only did it because I love you, silly.”

So it becomes their thing through elementary school. Will gets an injury? Get Mike over there to kiss it better. Even the other kids are in on it, and if they see Will get a paper cut while he’s handing in a paper, they’ll usher him over to Mike to take care of. And neither boy is ashamed of it, even as they grow and graduate from their fifth grade class, when Will knocks his elbow on the podium while giving his graduation speech, Mike ignores the red flags (and the yells of his teachers) and races over to kiss it better.

 

Even when Dustin and Lucas and Max and Eleven are around, during D&D games or hanging out at the arcade, Mike keeps a close eye on Will, ready to pounce (or in this case, kiss his wounds better). His eagerness to take care of Will does not go unnoticed by the others, and it oftentimes becomes subject to teasing once Joyce shows up to take Will and Eleven home.

“You’re all over him!” Lucas tells him.

“Am not!”

“Yeah you are!” Dustin says.

Max nods. “It’s 3-1, dude. You’re all over him.”

“Okay, so what if I am? Lucas, you’re all over Max!”

“But that’s because we’re dating?”

Oh yeah. Mike’s face heats up and Max nudges him.

“So, you like him then?”

“Maybe I do?” He asks. But his friends don’t have the answer to that question.

 

After a bit of “soul searching” (as Nancy calls it when Mike asks for her help because _I really want to hold Will’s hand??_ ) Mike decides that he likes guys and girls, and realizing that is like putting on glasses for the first time. Everything’s clearer now and his first instinct is to tell Will. But he’s not at his house; Jonathan mentions a birthday party and the local roller rink, so Mike picks his bike up and takes off.

The roller rink smells of cavities and injuries, and the haze caused by the smoke machine makes Mike grimace as he enters, searching for Will amongst the people. And Mike’s not mad about not being invited to the party, he swears. He just wishes Will would have told him, in case something really cool happened there. Not that anything cool would happen there, because parties at roller rinks are lame, and the people who go to those things are lame (except for Will, Will’s never lame). He leans against the frame of the rink and watches the seemingly infinite mass of prepubescent teens going around in pointless circles, looking for the one person he went there for. But then he sees someone fall on the rink and he hears someone say “ _Are you okay, Will?”_ and Mike’s brain shuts down.

The strange boy with dumb glasses and a dumb patterned shirt helps Will, whose back is to Mike. Mike watches as Will brings a hand up to scrub at his eyes like he always does when he’s about to cry, and Mike imagines his lip quivering the way it always does; the unnamed boy glances at his lips and brings a hand up to cup Will’s jaw, tilting it upward and Mike jumps over the railing.

“No!” He shouts, narrowly dodging the racing skaters as he makes his way to Will and the boy in the center.

“Mike?”

“Who’s this guy?” Mike asks him.

“Oh, this is my friend Richie!” Will says. “Richie, this is Mike, the one I was telling you about.”

“Why does your friend look so emo?” Richie asks, but Mike’s not fazed because _Will was talking about him?_

Mike nods, only to frown when he notices the bead of blood on Will’s lip. “What happened to your lip?”

“When I fell, I bit it. Richie was inspecting it for me.”

“That’s dumb.” Mike says, grabbing his hand. “The lighting here is bad. Let’s go to the bathroom and I’ll check that for you.”

Will’s cheeks go pink, but he nods, saying a quiet, “Okay, Mike.”

“Would the kid in the middle of the rink please get off the rink? Rollerskates only, no street shoes.” Says a bland voice on the speaker system. But Mike is too occupied with holding Will’s hand to realize they were talking about him.

 

“So he’s just a friend, right?”

“Right?” Will says, but laughs, “What else would he be?”

“I don’t know,” Mike shrugs, but sits on the ledge of the sink. He grabs Will’s shoulders and pulls him closer; the skates on his wheels make it easier to do, and on the tile Will moves faster and he grabs Mike’s shoulders to support himself. Mike blushes. “You know what this means?” He swipes a thumb over Will’s lip.

“What?” Will whispers.

“You got hurt. That means I have to kiss it better.” He shrugs, but watches Will carefully for a reaction. When Will’s lips break into a small grin, face flushing more and hands squeezing his shoulders, he continues. “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.” He adds, smiling and pushing his forehead to Will’s.

“You’re a dork.” Will laughs, but he’s the one who fills the space between them.

It’s short and chaste, and Mike can taste iron-y blood, but he doesn’t even care because he’s kissing _Will_  and Will is kissing _him_  and he feels his heart racing in his chest; they pull away when they hear someone barge into the bathroom. It’s Richie, of course, and Mike decides that he hates that guy and his dumb hair. He pulls Will out of the bathroom and turns to him when they’re out, “I like you.”

“I like you too,” Will looks down at his skates bashfully. Mike wants to kiss him again, but behind Will is a class full of strangers and his heart hurts because it’s not safe for them like this.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Mike says, squeezing his hand. “You rode your bike here, right?”

Will nods.

“Good, let’s get your street shoes and go to my house.”

And they do just that.

 

Sliding on the Wheeler’s kitchen floor with their socks isn’t the same as rollerskating, but they can put on any song (that Mike owns on cassette, which is less than what Will has), and they can sing songs that they can’t play, at the top of their lungs and without fear of judgement.

Nancy goes down to yell at them at 10:00 because she has a test in the morning and when their parents get home from their date they’ll be pissed, but when she sees Will and Mike slow dancing in the kitchen, Will standing on Mike’s feet as they sing off-tune Sinatra to themselves, she can’t bring herself to be mad.


End file.
